These are the facts, nothing here but the facts. I was on the road to Damascus via a street in the West Village in New York City, when, in an instant, barometric pressure had dropped 100 MB. Darkness enveloped an eleven-o’clock-morning sun. It may have been a trick of the mind, or some kind of serious panic disorder. Although I could no longer see, I pictured myself a child on a visit to my great grandmother's house in La Salle, Illinois. In my head I felt as though a tornado was approaching...

For three years now I have struggled,Wanting to write an epic,A great, big, love poem about us,

I sought to post the way this thing of ours wentHow it went right from the start,All banners unfurled,How time marshals forcesThough we go about our daily business,And children are born, and as they grow up, think,Believe fervently that they are meant for one thingTo discover later, underneath it all,A new world order sweeps away the old,And learn that the fulfillment of prophecyRemains unknown, until the actual event transpires.

The Word takes on meaning after the fact.

Headlines acclaim events;Yet history proves otherwise,Often something other than bold type might suggest.Although the finite first meet the eye,Spirit alights, it writes the script,The real storyline often lies well beyondFirst-glance tales of human endeavor …

We intend to do one thing, but, many times, later, Discover, unwittingly we do another.

2.

Today I write, declare the momentYes, I say that is the way,The way, it had actually had happened.

Now consider, I dedicate this verse to you;Yet allow, if you please, that it records events,Prior to our acquaintance,Events which had transpired years before we met,Years before either of us heard each others' name.

Where do I get the nerve?-- The actual gall of me, hey! --To affirm that this poem part of our story,

And that I include you in geography,In a place on this planet you had not experienced,An earth, whereupon your feet had never trod.

In truth, the matter propels me, no choice,I do what destiny would have me do.

I found these words;I had inked them once,On lined, yellow, perforated sheet,

‘I sit at the desk, night after night,And sometimes, it's even day and night,Often I write on topics, quotidian and small,On matters of no special interest,Issues, which critics in essays declare,Lack propriety and moment,And do not belong to sphere of poetic ambition.

'Now years have passed,And choice less still, I write.’

Earlier today, I had packed up your mail,Readied the address to Coral Gables,And when you later called and askedHow I was doing, me, under compulsion’s demand,Lonely, slave to love and ardent desire,I answered 'pathetic.'

No one else will have me.

It as though I have some terrible pox;Other women see it and shun me.

My mirror image, however, it reminds me of you. Same as you, I cram my schedule, always insufficient time,The day wants the hours,I have endless lists ‘To Do’.

I isolate terribly, talk to no one for the week,And when friends telephone call, I rush them off!Honest! No time for idle talk, or chat..No choice! I return to my desk.

I dread any date for lunch.

I pass on evening engagements.Sorry! I want only you.

I just want to be with you.

Yet I have that other side,More than everyday necessity and much moreThan simple expression of my love for youA confidence I wish to share with you and world,About how I always knew that you were the girl for me,Though I came to comprehend it, my great love,The singular fact, only after the event;

I believe I might say it right,Watch me now, and let’s see if I say it right!

3.

I remember Central Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona,Danny’s store packed with Native American silver,Bracelets, necklaces and rings, properly displayedOn racks, in trays, locked within showcases,And on clear shelves, velvet pads, the array of colors, Turquoise, coral, black onyx and mother of pearl,Abalone, agates mined and cut to display their fire,And Alexander, my son, maybe eight,not more than ten,His years of age, playing behind the counters,Next to the shotguns, diagonally propped,On the floor twelve-gauge shells in open boxes,Ready, should there be an extended engagement.

I share with you the times when, flying inFrom Dallas, the grand noise, engines’ reversalTo land at Sky Harbor, the ground crew,How they scrambled, and then,Wheeled up the staircase,The platform for debarkation, and me, I would descend The steps full-tilt straight onto the tarmac,Fahrenheit, ninety-five degrees in early morning,A rental car awaited me, and I was offOver to the parking lot at the Dog Track,To the swap meet that was unfolding and I soughtThe cowboy named, Roadrunner, who always hadTons of loot, the goods, every Sunday’s hauls.

Though at his point, it, more dream than reality,I recall the very special meeting, when tradersLined up, raised hands, and one after the other,Volunteered to say that jewelry great here andProclaimed that whosoever is welcomed intoThe lounge camper, who greets the Navajo,Both the man and wife, with eyes at slight, diverted,

And who knows that the children divine a pattern,From their running across the gravel lot, left and right,Up and down, then unto the asphalt sidewalk,

That person, who enjoys those momentsWhen the children stop to refresh themselves fromThe water-cooled, stainless steel, floor-pedal fountain, The bright sparkling, that eye of the desert,The stream which gushed upward,(It was next to the right side of the pari-mutuel windows)

Upon that person, who bore witness to the design,Who abstracted anagram from withinAll the children’s scurry, who traced,Out upon the open parking space, meaning,Who was brought to new vision,Who was able to see within the minds’ eye, the dance,The dance holy ones once danced in godly regalia,That person, who heard within the youngsters' feetThe drums, the rhythms ancestors had orchestrated,So to let go, leave this material world,And find entrance to separate reality,The traders at the meeting, in-order, one-by-one,Both arms raised up on high, heads flung back,Palms stretched and fingers spread wide apart,As if they reached and pressed upon the sky,Called upon Great Talking God to sanctify their wish,

It was at that momentThey bestowed their most precious title,And between the ghosts and the human beingsThe word rang and cemented the union, ‘Friend’.

4.

One Sunday afternoon, I felt good magicWhen a child ran up behind me,He quickly, then, touched the back of my hand.

Later I met a Mexican friend up on South Mountain.His house was painted a bright, distinctive blue.I bought more jewelry and got into my car,I took the Express Way North, exited at Bell Road,And headed to way out West of the city.

At one point, I passed the shopping mall,I thought about Monday’s appointments,How a salesman's lot means he sits,Marks time to wait his turn with buyers.

That night on the concrete patio, the one surroundingThe big swimming pool at the Community Center,I buck-danced to the beat, which playedOn the rock an’ roll, radio station.

Although it was already that Sunday’s dusk,And the day’s high temperature had receded,It still was ninety, over ninety degrees while I sat backOn the lounge chairs and watched Alexander,Time and again, practice dives off the high board.

5.

Even then, it was long ago, and in Phoenix,It was you! Darling, I had been waiting for you;The desert air brought dream of you,The shimmering, the uplifts, the vertical lines,Up, upward, shafts of heat risingOut across the desert vista,Now I recognize it was a dream of you,And this, my verse was racing,I flashed on a fast and mighty steed,I road atop a beast as if it galloped through my mind,Yet I had command

Already galloping through my mind,I managed to pull in the reins,Then I hitched it up, tied it to the rail at the tip,I hitched the reins at the tip of my tongue.

I was reciting poetry, not out loud, but to myself,Though I knew not its power, no idea the prophecy,I knew not the meaning of that woman,Who I glimpsed,Whose image I caught from from the corner of my eye,Who walked out among the columns of earth fever,And stood next to the Saguaros, in the twilight,Who appeared in an instance out on the horizon,Seemingly, over and against the floor of the desert,Before she disappeared and let me to these lines,The cadences I repeat from once upon a timeAnd now so long ago, today at key board,These words I use to describe a dream of you.

Long before I had ever made your actual acquaintance,A figure in landscape,I saw you in time prior to when you were born.

At the airport, when security stopped me, I stoodIn a booth whose sliding curtains dropped to the floor,The jewelry I carried in my on-board luggage,X ray showed a concentrated jumble of metal,And as I awaited the woos and ahs of personnel,When they opened my bags for inspection,It was then that I began to wonder, and it remainsFresh today, as if I describe events from yesterday,It was then I began to wonder, when you,When your love might saunter in, and make my life complete.